A Matter of Faith
by Jordan Tobey
Summary: In a far future filled with both magic and technology an elven priest recounts his life in his last moments. Please Review.


My name is Palnar Mytok, I fear the time remaining to me is short, I pray and hope that these writings will survive my own end and perhaps someday they may be found by another.

I grew up on Byston in the small village of Litiny, my family had a long history of powerful magic users; something I showed no talent for. As the third of four children, this led to no end of friendly harassment by my siblings, particularly my two older brothers. I cannot count the number of times I suddenly found myself floating across the room without warning. Because of my lack of talent in the magical field I decided upon coming of age to join the Space Defense Force as a Starfighter pilot. Even though I graduated near the top of my class and enjoyed piloting I was not fulfilled.

One day while running a maintenance flight on a fighter just back from a rebuild I was hit by a meteor shower. When it had passed my fighter was totaled, the cockpit cracked, the powerplant offline and leaking radiation, all the systems dead, including life support, communications, and the emergency transmitter. I was not in much better shape myself, several micrometeorites had pierced the armored cockpit and badly injured me, in addition, even with most of the holes patched, the remaining air was quickly becoming bad, and the radiation leaking from the powerplant was doing damage of its own. By all rights I should have died that day, but I was fated for another destiny. The air had become nearly unbreathable, radiation was sleeting through my body, and my eyesight had begun to turn to tunnel vision when a vision of a silver dragon seemed to fly towards me, the symbol of Our Lady. As I reached out to try and touch it I finally blacked out.

That the Church medical frigate I awoke on had picked me up was nothing short of a miracle, my disabled fighter had shown up among the asteroids as no more than one of many anomalies, yet the Captain had felt a strange urge to investigate the one that was my fighter. They pulled me out of the wreckage only minutes before I would have asphyxiated. I was in unbelievable pain, but I knew now where my true calling lay.

The training was difficult, but not nearly so much for me as for many, my kind are used to personal goals spanning centuries, so the ten years of solitude and silence wore little on me. I found my inner connection to Our Lady and for the first time in my life felt truly complete. The day I exchanged the robes of an acolyte for those of a priest will forever be burned in my brain with joy.

Rather than being assigned to a specific temple like most, I instead took up the role of a traveling priest, moving from planet to planet, providing comfort and guidance to communities too small or too far from what is perceived as civilization to merit a church and priest of their own. Those days of working with and helping the common people were the happiest of my life. As a healer I helped bring new life into the world, as an advisor I helped guide people during their lives, and as a priest, I saw to their souls when death came to claim them.

I clearly remember the plague on Gerald Prime, the streets were filled with the dead, more were sick than the doctors and the clergy together could heal, they themselves many times falling prey to that which they fought. I myself used my healing touch until I collapsed from fatigue, and then awoke to do it again. There were so many bodies we could not even give last rites properly, having to perform short services over mass graves, the living requiring more of our attention than the dead. It was decades before the nightmares of those horrible ten months faded.

I was present when the forces of Hell broke through the dimensional barrier on Gambler VII. The shuffling ranks of its dead citizens, reanimated from death to bolster the ranks of the damned, to which were added any of our own who fell in the fighting were a sight to inspire fear in the bravest of men. I myself nearly lost my leg defending my aid station, only just managing hold off the daemons who broke through our lines. To this day I still have a limp in my left leg from a wound that not even our healing magics could fully repair.

I stood with the valiant Sir Starblade when he banished the High Daemon Lord Arquarites back to Hell after he had laid waste to three systems. What a combat that was, the Daemon Lord only just restrained by my wards was a sight to behold, an indescribable towering dark presence that radiated evil and chaos, reality itself bending to his will. And in front of him, the valiant templar in armor so white it shone even in the darkness, his flaming blade plunging deep into the beast's breast, ending its reign of terror.

Accompanying the Exploration vessel _Hawkeye _I brought the word to the Yasuall, now, two hundred years later, some of the most fervent believers in the galaxy. I helped explore ruins from the Lost Times on Blackstar. I held services on a world where the sky itself reflected the emotions of those on its surface. The beauty of that day will not be equaled in my eyes until the time I receive my final reward.

In my travels I have seen powerful artifacts from the Lost Times. I have read ancient texts revealing secrets long lost. Through everything my faith has never wavered.

I find it ironic that which has given me the greatest happiness, traveling and learning, will likely cause my death. In my explorations I came across evidence that the daemons were attempting to open a new portal to the mortal realm. I sent a message for help, but fearing it would arrive too late, I set off on my own to try and seal the portal before it could fully open. I was only partially successful. The portal was as I had feared already open when I arrived and it was a battle indeed to fight my way to it. I managed to seal the portal, but it left me too weak to fight my way out.

For the last several minutes the pounding on the door has gotten steadily louder, I fear that my wards will not hold against the daemons onslaught much longer. I've come a long way from the woodland village of my youth, and though death is now coming for me, it shall not find me an easy victim, for I fear not the darkness, for My Lady is with me always.

_**The above pieces of parchment were found in a sealed and warded box within the temple ruins on the third planet of system X97 by a church response team under several tons of recently collapsed rubble. No body was ever found.**_


End file.
